Adoption must be a curse word. Not an everyday, run-of-the-mill curse word, but an impression of utter inadequacy, last resort curse word. As a self-proclaimed curse word aficionado, one would assume I knew of and had used on occasions worthy, the vase majority of American curse words. Why, I'll even make the claim that all standard curse words were in my regular vocabulary. I pride myself on my well-honed craft of curse word usage.
Imagine my dismay when I realized that the word adoption, which I use regularly and without the emphasis I reserve for a curse word, falls into the curse word family. I did not come to this realization overnight, nor did I realize how far-reaching the effects.
Children make the world go around and keep all of us on our toes. Think about it...without children there will eventually be no more life. Even if the average life span is raised to 100 years, without children the world's population will die out in 110 years (there are always those stubborn folks who refuse to be normal). This thought raises the question - how do we keep children coming and keep the world populated with well-adjusted productive members of society? There is only one way to bring a child into this world. That way, much to the chagrin of the modern men out there, is for a woman to get pregnant and give birth. There is no ethical way to get away from that. It is the second part of the question that has alternatives.
How do we produce children who are both well-adjusted and productive members of society? This process actually begins with conception, but I am simply not prepared to have that conversation right now. So for the purpose of this blog, let's take a look at producing responsible individuals beginning after birth. The only proven way to raise this healthy person is through human contact.
The absolute vast majority of children are raised by the woman who birthed her and in most circumstances, the man who conceived her. Because of its commonality, most persons assume that a child was birthed by the same couple who is raising her. No thought is given to any other possible circumstance. Even when the child obviously looks different from her parents, unless there is a different race involved, strangers will come up with ways that the child is like her parents. She has your long fingers, he crinkles his nose just like you, her hair is silky like yours, and the list goes on. Humans are desperate to connect the child with the parents - in behavior or appearance.
This brings up the truth that not all parents birthed their children. Through circumstance or desire, some adults choose to raise a child birthed by someone else as their own. The vast majority of you reading this blog were raised in a home. While it might not have been the perfect home and there were most likely lots of moments you wanted to be from anywhere else, you had a roof over your head and food on the table. There were adults around you and everyone in the house knew your name. For many children, that is a fantasy - a wonderful world that they only allow themselves to see in the safety of a dream. Those children live in institutions or orphanages because their birthmothers could not or would not raise them.
These institutions and orphanages are improving each year and it is no longer quite a death sentence to grow up in one. However, institutionalized care is second best to a loving home with caring parents. These parents did not birth these children, but are willing and able to bring a strange child into their home and raise her as their own, with all of the same rights as a biological child. They do not love that child any less than a biological child and do not consider her any less "theirs."
My husband and I chose to become parents through adoption, not birth. We had not been declared infertile or exhausted all attempt at pregnancy. We decided that our goal was to be parents, not to be pregnant. There are so many orphans in our small world who dream of parents and a home. After much thought, discussion, and prayer, we decided that there was no reason we shouldn't start our family through adoption. What follows is our story...
